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Boyden brings home key UMass award

Sentinel & Enterprise

Updated:
06/11/2017 06:31:56 AM EDT

AMHERST -- Ryan D. Boyden of Leominster has received the 21st Century Leaders award from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The award recognizes students who have demonstrated exemplary standards of achievement, initiative and social awareness. Recipients have contributed to the university through exceptional accomplishments in research, leadership and outstanding creative and athletic talents that enhance the reputation of the campus.

Boyden, who double-majored in physics and astronomy, was one of about 5,500 undergraduates awarded degrees in more than 100 majors by the university during the 147th annual commencement ceremony on May 12.

His research on quantifying the impact of stellar feedback on molecular clouds by using common astrostatistics earned him two honors almost never accorded an undergraduate: as lead author of a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal and as a speaker at an American Astronomical Society meeting.

Boyden received the Hasbrouck Scholarship from the Department of Physics, and in the summer of 2016 went to UCLA as a research intern at a National Science Foundation "Research Experience for Undergraduates" program for physics and astronomy students, where he studied star clusters in the Milky Way.

Boyden has served as a UMass Amherst campus tour guide, New Students Orientation leader, resident assistant and secretary of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

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This fall, he will attend the University of Arizona, where he plans to earn a doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics with a minor in astrobiology.

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